Robbery Team May Take A Bank Official, Fbi Says

November 30, 1985|By Philip Wattley.

The FBI advised Chicago-area bank officials Friday that they have information that two fugitive bank-robbery suspects, sought for a $500,000 bank robbery in Wisconsin in September, may attempt to seize a bank official and his family in a hold-up plot ``in the near future.``

The suspects, Joseph W. Dougherty, who is on the FBI`s top-10 fugitive list, and Terry L. Conners, have long records for bank robberies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

The FBI said Dougherty, 46, of Philadelphia, and Conners, 42, of Terre Haute, Ind., were believed to be riding in a stolen 1977 Pontiac Le Mans white and red car with Nebraska license plates.

Last Labor Day evening, the two held Richard Woodcock, a bank vice president, and his family captive in their Brookfield, Wis., home, the FBI said. The next day, according to the FBI, the two drove with their captives to Woodcock`s Central Bank in West Ellis, Wis., where as other bank officers arrived for work, the robbers locked them in a room and got the combinations to the bank`s main vault and two night depositories. The FBI said the robbers fled with an estimated $500,000.

Three days after the hold-up, authorities arrested an associate of the two suspects, Richard Sweezy, 47, who was on parole for a previous bank robbery, and recovered a portion of the bank loot. Sweezy was seized in the vicinity of Milwaukee County Stadium in Milwaukee.

Dougherty and Conners escaped from federal marshals on June 19 while being transported from a federal prison to an Oklahoma City courtroom.